For the past six years President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have waged a relentless attack on the health insurance industry. In the most recent iteration, the president assures us he is not responsible for the wave of health insurance policy cancellations. The insurance companies are.

Today nothing of significance happens without a plan written by some government bureaucrats, approved by other government bureaucrats, who then grant permission to another set of government bureaucrats to study the problem in conjunction with lawyers/lobbyists who then consult their friends on ways to make matters worse.

Government security forces recently intercepted one of the largest truck bombs ever built, a massive "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device," or VBIED, packed with some 61,500 pounds of explosives. The Hino heavy cargo truck was stopped as it crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan south of Peshawar.

Donald Rumsfeld joined Ransom Notes Radio to discuss his rules for success, and his thoughts about leadership. According to Rumsfeld, the scandals that are plaguing the White House are creating a perfect storm of distrust and failure.

Opponents of President Obama have plenty of ammunition to use as they criticize his second term agenda. Almost all of these critics have focused their attention on Obama’s policies, not his race. Despite the facts, the President’s defenders continually use the race card to invalidate criticism from his opponents.

Fri, Nov 15, 2013

It is only a week away. Next Friday will be November 22nd and the 50th anniversary. Dallas is steeling itself for the attention, the crowds, the people everywhere with their smartphones taking pictures.

Ask a cancer patient about the need for affordable health care. The issue of healthcare quality is very personal to me. As a former cancer patient, I couldn’t believe the out-of-pocket expenses that drastically affected my monthly budget! But affordable is only one aspect of the equation. Affordability should not produce poor quality. Yet it often does.

What happened in Geneva last week was the most significant international event since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the rise of the United States as the sole global superpower.

One of Obamacare’s primary architects, MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, has described the millions who have lost their insurance as “genetic lottery winners”. He says they should be forced to pay more for coverage because they are lucky enough to be healthy.

The silence is deafening. A depraved photographer accused of abusing and exploiting young models enjoys access to the entertainment industry's hottest female stars, from Rihanna to Lady Gaga to Beyonce to Miley Cyrus. He counts "progressive" feminist celebs among his most intimate friends. He's even photographed President Obama. But when confronted with his sordid history and career degradation of women, these elite friends of Terry have nothing to say.

The Motion Picture Association of America put the modern movie-ratings system in place in 1968 for parents to protect children under 18 from ultraviolent or sexually explicit material. Since 1968, avant-garde leftists have been trying to knock this voluntary system down.

The World Economic Forum has issued its annual report on the gender gap worldwide, and it has received respectful notice from the usual places (PBS, CNN, The Washington Post). But any report that places the United States below Cuba, the Philippines and South Africa deserves a little skepticism. In fact, the WEF places the U.S. 23rd in the world, below the Scandinavian countries, and those just named, but also below Lesotho.

Today nothing of significance happens without a plan written by some government bureaucrats, approved by other government bureaucrats, who then grant permission to another set of government bureaucrats to study the problem in conjunction with lawyers/lobbyists who then consult their friends on ways to make matters worse.

Three famous men died on Nov. 22, 1963. The one getting the most
attention, understandably, is John F. Kennedy. Less so the other two:
Aldous Huxley, author of the futuristic novel "Brave New World," and Clive
Staples Lewis.

On Saturday, Nov. 16, the United States marks a milestone: the 80th anniversary of when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union and "normalized" U.S.-USSR relations. It is a day that should live in infamy.

Doesn’t it seem strange that the President has to take soooo many Constitutionally-questionable actions in order to implement Obamacare? Michael Tanner joined the program to talk about the President’s extrajudicial “solution” to the problems caused by his broken promises.

While New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races dominated headlines last week, the most fascinating election story wasn’t on the East Coast. It was in Colorado, where Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates chipped in millions to fund a $1 billion income tax hike campaign, only to see it handily defeated by nearly a 2-1 margin—proof that the threat of a massive tax hike can transform a moderate electorate into a throng of fiscal conservatives.

Hillary isn't going to be happy with MIT's Jon Gruber, the "father of Obamacare." Especially since she is the "grandmother of Obamacare" and Gruber is confirming her maternity once-removed of the most unpopular law in three generations.

When Bill Clinton speaks, Democrats listen. But Bill Clinton, as we know all too well, is not an honest broker. He does what’s best for himself first, people also named Clinton second – and, if there is time left, others.

When PunditFact -- the new offspring from the folks at PolitiFact -- contacted me, they wanted sources for "all of the claims" in the following statement I made Nov. 4 on CNN's "Crossfire": "In 1900, at all three levels of government -- federal, state and local -- government took less than 10 percent of the American people's money. Now, we're talking about 35 percent, and when you add a dollar value to mandates, we're talking almost 50 percent."

Christians are certainly familiar with Jesus’ words to the woman at the well. “Salvation is from the Jews,” he tells her in John 4:22. And this has always stood as a stumbling block to anti-Semitism in the Church. It is hard to imagine how one can be a true Christian and be an anti-Semite, too.

Autumn has always been a transitional season for me. As a child, I saw it as the time when the carefree days of summer changed to conform with the structure and requirements of school. The same held true through college and graduate school.

They are at it again. They are again telling Republicans and conservatives how dreadful their political condition really is. I am speaking, of course, of the voices of the Kultursmog, and to hear them tell it we are in a hell of a heap. We lost the governorship of Virginia. Even worse, we won the governorship of New Jersey. What dreadful news.

Barack Obama's nomination of Fed governor Janet Yellen to be the next central bank chieftain is nothing but extraordinary when we consider how closely Mrs. Yellen has been to the policies of the current Fed ruler, Ben Bernanke.

The GOP can win. . . And Newt Gingrich – the last man who successfully made DC do something it really didn’t want to do – has the blue print. John Ransom talked to Gingrich about his plan. Also Michael Schaus talks about the government’s insatiable appetite to limit freedom of choice.

Wed, Nov 13, 2013

In a weird confluence of the nation's two most pressing issues -- Obamacare and our insane immigration laws -- this week we found out that the tens of thousands of "navigators" hired by the government to enroll people in Obamacare will include convicted felons.

Dianne Feinstein is outside, and she wants to come in and help. Thats' right, one of the most ardent of the pro-Obamacare voices in the Senate now wants to join the self-appointed fire brigade trying to contain the five alarm blaze known as Obamacare.

Jared Bernstein, the man who was formerly responsible for advising Vice President Joe Biden on economic matters (wow . . . that would be a daunting task), has said that if Obama is a socialist, he’s “the worst socialist in history.” I assume this was not meant as an assessment on Obama’s competency.

In opposing ObamaCare, the Tea Party took a position that increasing numbers of Americans agree with, now that ObamaCare's potential for disaster is becoming clearer by the day. But in trying to defund ObamaCare without the Congressional votes to do so, the Tea Party made a major tactical mistake.

Liberal marketing gurus here in Colorado are masters of Obamacare distraction. While customers struggle to apply through the still-broken health insurance exchange and consumers grapple with cancellation notices, these hipster ad designers are partying it up.

According to some estimates, there are more than 100 million traffic signals in the U.S., but whatever the number, how many of us would like Washington, in the name of public health and safety, to be in sole charge of their operation?

As the Obamacare fiasco deepens and broadens, and one watches the panic enveloping Team Obama, which strategy looks more desperate: Defending the indefensible or savaging critics as somehow responsible for this mess?

The left is scared to death that its favored 2016 candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, could be on the ropes. Hillary's favorable ratings are down dramatically from when she left office -- in April 2013, her favorability rating stood at 56 percent, but by the end of October, it had dropped to 46 percent.

That the socialist French government of François Hollande just blocked a bad deal with Tehran, emerging as the hero of the Geneva negotiations, is on one level a huge surprise. But it also follows logically from the passivity of the Obama administration.

A quick show of hands: Who thinks supporting Obamacare will be a beneficial platform in 2014? Okay, thanks Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. . . You can put your hand down now. Most sane people understand Obamacare is a liability – even if they aren’t perfectly clear on why.

The article’s headline was absolutely shocking: “Maryland Middle School Requires Children To Cross Dress For ‘LGBTQ Appreciation Day’,” and not surprisingly, the article quickly went viral. The good news is that it was a hoax.

It's frustrating enough that the Republican Party shoots itself in the foot over and over again, but it's particularly aggravating that the ones who do it always seem to think of themselves as the smartest people in the room. Well, if they're so smart and know what we have to do "to win," then why is it that they do so many selfish and stupid things? Even if you set ideology completely aside, how much sense does it make for Republicans to make elementary mistakes like...?

Third parties have had an unbroken record of failure in American presidential politics. So it was refreshing to see in the Tea Party an insurgent movement, mainly of people who were not professional politicians, but who nevertheless had the good sense to see that their only chance of getting their ideals enacted into public policies was within one of the two major parties.

In 2007, a group of governors and state education chiefs got together to try to remedy the declining and degraded U.S. public academic system. Their goal was to establish a new set of standards that better prepared kids for college, careers and their ever-changing, hyper-connected and globally competitive world.

When American politicians get around to reforming their immigration laws, they tend to look backwards. They seek to address immigration problems in the past rather than look ahead and set policy that will strengthen the nation in the future.

As a criminology professor, one of the biggest challenges I face is explaining the difference between similar yet distinct criminal offenses. When students struggle, I usually help them with criminal law hypotheticals.

"The end justifies the means" is an unstated rationale that guides much liberal thinking and rationalizes immoral behavior in service to a supposedly greater good. But a column I've just read stretches this twisted ethical calculus to a new level.

It shouldn’t surprise us that a society that is truly confused that the “gun-free” zone they created behind the main building of the New York Public Library didn’t prevent a 16-year old from shooting someone over a coat he wanted; that that society also can’t understand the concept of "self-defense."

The 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's murder is being marked, not primarily by retrospectives on his life and accomplishments, and not by reflections on the myth versus the reality of his presidency, but instead by one of the features of our media age that is poisonous to our cultural health -- a macabre focus on the details of his murder.

In Geneva, Switzerland, The United States and other major powers appeared
close to a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for
lifting some economic sanctions against the terrorist-sponsoring state.

"60 Minutes" correspondent Lara Logan had to walk back her reporting on the attack that left Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods dead in a Benghazi, Libya, mission Sept. 11, 2012. "We realized we had been misled," Logan said of discredited source Dylan Davies on Sunday.

As Vince Lombardi, among others, has delicately phrased it, winning isn't everything; it's the only thing. That's what happens with absolute declarations: They get absolute real fast, to the point that, in political terms, it becomes challenging to discuss the prospect of Christopher James Christie as likely candidate for the Republican nomination for president.

“Selfies.” You’ve probably heard of them. They are the photos that teens (and, too often, young adults) take of themselves and post far and wide for the admiration or amusement of friends. Snap-chat, Facebook, and Twitter are full of selfies. Although great fun when used in moderation, they've also become a classic example of teen-age narcissism, self-absorption, and lack of vision—and the icon of a nation struggling to remember its greatness.

This columnist is one of the, reportedly, millions whose health insurance (much of good quality and affordable) has fallen prey to an Obamacare “Death Panel.” My insurance policy of long standing, apparently, will disappear on January 1. My efforts to replace it, in the Exchange, have been thwarted by an epic fail of the Obamacare system.

Over the past few years bullying has become a hot topic of conversation. Perhaps I should amend that: bullying has become a hot topic in the media as it has been pushed by progressives to force mainstream acceptance of their agenda.

Last week, the United States Senate matter-of-factly, with no serious vocal opposition except a last-ditch warning of the consequences by Indiana’s Dan Coats, voted 64 to 32 to expand government and repeal the Bible.

This is a story about two honest gay writers, Randy Shilts and Stephen Jimenez; about a victim/perpetrator of 20th-century plagues, Matthew Shepard; about propagandists, kids who crudely rebel against propaganda, and those who force kids to attend re-education camp.

With all the spying the United States has been doing on foreign leaders,
possibly including the pope, why is Jonathan Pollard, a former American
civilian intelligence analyst, still in prison nearly three decades after
being sentenced to life in prison for taking classified documents he
believed contained information important to Israel's self-defense?

The ninth of November marked the twenty-fourth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, probably the most important historical event since World War II and the most important lesson about human freedom experienced within the living memory of most of us.

Yesterday, Derek Hunter declared that libertarianism has entirely lost its meaning, that the party has devolved into a catch-all for people who want to criticize the government without doing anything about it. He also assumed that any Republican candidate would be better than a Democrat for classical liberals.

Last week, I discussed the importance of generating additional legal challenges to the IRS’s attempt to tax, borrow, and spend $700 billion, under the rubric of ObamaCare, yet contrary to the clear language of the statute and Congress’ intent.

The Japanese economy reflects the resiliency of their people. But there are limits to everything. They have lowered their interest rates down to the point where I don’t see how they can o any lower. What’s next, one-eighth of one percent interest rate loans?

Last week, it came out that New Jersey‘s Republican Governor Chris Christie refused to campaign for Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s race, which no doubt contributed to Cuccinelli’s loss. The jovial, fun-loving, charismatic Christie is wildly popular, with the second highest approval rating of Republican governors. He won re-election in Democratic-stronghold New Jersey by a landslide last week, with 60 percent of the vote to his Democrat challenger’s 39 percent.

Sun, Nov 10, 2013

Early next year, the Supreme Court will take up McCullen v. Coakley, a case challenging the Massachusetts statute that requires anti-abortion protesters and "sidewalk counselors" to stay at least 35 feet away from abortion-clinic entrances. Signed by Governor Deval Patrick in 2007, it is the strictest such "buffer zone" law in the nation; violators can be punished with up to 30 months in prison and fines as high as $5,000.

What do Tuesday's resounding re-election of Republican Chris Christie as governor of Democrat-friendly New Jersey and the excruciating defeat of tea party stalwart and gubernatorial wannabe Ken Cuccinelli in once reliably Republican Virginia say about Republican chances of retaking the White House in 2016?

When one thinks of ticket scalpers, one generally conjures a mental image of shady men waiting outside theaters offering scandalously overpriced tickets to late buyers from under several layers of trench coat.

On a recent visit to Moab, Utah, I saw a T-shirt with a picture of a Jeep stuck in a gap between two rock formations and a caption: "Confidence is the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation."

If there ever existed a city, where the practice of the day was to line up ten mothers, alongside one of their children, and to purposely kill more than four of those children, you might imagine an incoming mayoral candidate would have an opinion about that.